Variation (2018)
woodwind quintet
c. 3 minutes 30 seconds
Premiered by 5th Wave Collective
Holtschneider Performance Center, Chicago, IL, 20 October 2018
Live recording by North Coast Winds Quintet, Kent State Stark Fine Arts Building, North Canton, OH, 15 October 2023
c. 3 minutes 30 seconds
Premiered by 5th Wave Collective
Holtschneider Performance Center, Chicago, IL, 20 October 2018
Live recording by North Coast Winds Quintet, Kent State Stark Fine Arts Building, North Canton, OH, 15 October 2023
Variation (2018) was composed for 5th Wave Collective as part of its October 2018 concert in honor of the Women’s March. The piece is a response to Ethel Smyth’s The March of the Women (1910), a variant of which occurs in the horn at rehearsal B and grotesquely builds to a short-lived climax. In studying Smyth’s march, I was particularly fascinated by the voicing she uses in the first measure. While her piece is in F major, the first measure only provides the notes A and C, hinting perhaps at F major and perhaps at A minor. While this ambiguity is quickly resolved in Smyth’s next measure, I chose instead to focus on the possibility of a minor march. The result is a haunting, ethereal work that surrounds and provides context for the variant of Smyth’s march that occurs at the work’s center.